in my head, my jaw, my leg, my back. Sometimes those breaks still ache in the rain and Christ, it brings me right back to that basement. I can still smell it.
“Mom,” I whimpered. “Mom.”
We always want her, don’t we? Those of us who were lucky enough to be loved by our mothers. She’s the one who picks you up, dusts you off, cleans up your wounds and sends you back on your way. No one else ever loves you like that, not really. She’s the one you want when things go bad.
Then I remembered—the woods, the dog, the monster of a man. Panic ramped up my breathing, brought me wobbly to my feet. It was so goddamn quiet.
Remember what he said, that cop. He said: No matter what, don’t let them take you. And if they do, fight like your life depends on it. Because it does. Break all the rules, don’t listen, don’t be polite, make a mess, make a scene. Anything you can do to call attention to your situation, do it.
It was such an abstraction then, something from a movie, something so outrageous it was almost funny. Though I remember looking around that assembly and everyone so silent, staring. No one, not even the bullies and the troublemakers, made a sound.
But I was frozen, afraid to open my mouth.
“You have to get out of here.” Tess stood in the corner of the basement. She was still and calm. “He’s coming for you.”
“Tess.” I was so relieved to see her, moved toward her quickly.
But then she wasn’t there at all; I was alone. To this day, I don’t know if she is a product of my addled brain, or—something else. I moved over to where she was standing and there was a box of tools. A screwdriver, a saw, a rusty hammer.
I was shaking. My body quaking with fear and pain; my jaw, my head, my arm. I wept with it, unable to stop. I was so weak, I could barely lift the hammer. But I put it in the pocket of my shorts, took the screwdriver. Then she was at the top of the stairs.
“Use the screwdriver to remove this doorknob,” she whispered, urgent and sure. “Then run. And, Hank? Do not look back.”
By the time I got to the top of the stairs, she was gone again. My mind, shattered, just accepted her as she was, whatever she was—a friend who was trying to help me. In the black, it was impossible to see the knob. But I felt the screwdriver into the screw head, and slowly, painstakingly, I turned, and turned, and turned, until the knob fell off and the door swung open.
The house was rank, smelled of mold and garbage. It’s funny how children of privilege experience the world—our homes are attractive and safe, things are clean, rooms bright. We think it’s all like that—every house, the world, clean and safe. Even when they tell us that it isn’t, we don’t believe it.
Kreskey’s house was a hovel. Stacks of newspapers lined the walls, dishes spilled out of the sink, naked bulbs hung from wires in the ceiling. It was a maze of junk, old computer monitors lined up against a wall in the kitchen, furniture stained and sagging, walls yellow. It was a horror-movie house, nothing like anyplace I’d seen.
I limped quietly, trying to stifle my breathing, ignore the pain, looking for a door, a window. The back door in the kitchen was boarded shut, the windows, too. I saw Tess standing again; she motioned, silently urgent, and I followed. There it was. The front door. I broke into an unsteady run, hope giving me strength. That’s when I heard it.
The low rumble in his chest, guttural and ferocious. Wolf.
He was lying by the door, got to his feet as I approached.
I froze. I had the hammer and wished I’d brought the saw.
I had one of those aha moments: fight or die.
Maybe this is not quite the same as Ashley’s breakthrough. I’ve had other light bulb moments, too. But this one has served me best.
“Have you—ever had a moment like that, Dr. Reams?” asks Ashley now.
“I have,” I tell her. “I think all of us on the path to wellness have those moments. They’re like stepping stones, the places where we find a foothold to bring us to the next stone.”
“Did you ever want to die?”
I am open with my patients. Most of them know my path, my history. I think it helps